The present invention relates to rotary drum can crushers and, in particular, it relates to a scraping device for scraping crushed cans off the drums of rotary drum can crushers.
Rotary drum can crushers for crushing metal cans to facilitate the recycling and eventual reuse of cans are known. However, none of the can crushers to date provide a scraping mechanism for removing crushed cans which tend to cling to the rotary drums of the crushers subsequent to the can being crushed.
For example, the Newman U.S. Pat. No. 4,444,100 describes a can crusher having an outer drum and a roller within the drum. The outer drum has a drive ring around its outer periphery, and the inner drum or roller is an idler. Cans are introduced into the crusher and directed to a nip between the outer drum and the roller.
The Morlock U.S. Pat. No. 4,573,405 describes a can crushing apparatus having an outer, bottomless drum housing, which is tubular and mounted on rollers to be freely rotatable. A driven central inner roller mounted on the interior of the tubular drum is urged against one side of the drum. Cans to be crushed are guided into a nip between the roller and the outer drum, and are crushed as they pass between the roller and drum under spring load.
The can crushers of the above references occasionally will have crushed cans that cling to the crushing surfaces of the drum and/or the roller. In order to remove the clinging cans, the can crusher must be stopped and the cans manually removed. Stopping the machine every time a can needs to be removed is very time consuming.